The failure of Live Aid

David Rieff, writing in the July issue of Prospect magazine, takes on Sir Bob Geldoff and his legacy. His article, Dangerous pity, claims that:

... the millions donated to Ethiopia in 1985 thanks to Live Aid were supposed to go towards relieving a natural disaster. In reality, donors became participants in a civil war. Many lives were saved, but even more may have been lost in Live Aid's unwitting support of a Stalinist-style resettlement project.

A controversial argument, to be sure, but one that supporters of foreign aid cannot with any credibility ignore. Sometimes aid can do more harm than good, particularly when well-intentioned but naive amateurs are involved.

Comments

[Marrianne Hanson]

I agree with you when you say foreign aid can di more harm than good, and this also goes for IMF and World Bank, specially for African countries. But it only means that more effort is needed...